1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multimedia broadcast and multicast service controlling apparatus and method based on a user location, and more particularly, to a multimedia broadcast and multicast service controlling apparatus and method that may provide a service when a mobile terminal reaches a location where the user can receive the service, when the service is not providable at a current location and is requested.
2. Description of the Related Art
A Long Term Evolution (LTE)-Advanced system defines a Multimedia Broadcast Multicast service Single Frequency Network (MBSFN) based Multimedia Broadcast and Multicast Service (MBMS) to provide a broadcast service via a communication network. The MBSFN is a method that enables all base stations included in an MBSFN area to synchronize radio resources to simultaneously transmit the same data at the same time. Accordingly, when a mobile terminal is located in a boundary of a cell, a signal of a neighbor base station may act as a gain as opposed to acting as interference. Therefore, in the MBSFN area, the mobile terminal may recognize MBMS data transmitted from the all base stations as MBMS data transmitted from a single base station. Also, the mobile terminal may receive a seamless broadcast service in the MBSFN area without separately performing a handover.
When the MBSFN-based MBMS service is provided, each of all services provided in a network may be one-to-one mapped to one multicast traffic channel (MTCH) among logical channels, and a plurality of MTCHs may be N-to-one mapped to one Multicast Channel (MCH) among transport channels. A single MCH may be one-to-one mapped to one Physical Multicast Channel (PMCH) among physical channels. In this case, depending on a feature of a service, a plurality of PMCHs may exist, and the PMCHs may have different Modulation and Coding Schemes (MCSs) from each other. For example, a broadcast service having a low definition and a broadcast service having a high definition may be mapped to different PMCHs, and a low MCS level, for example, a QPSK modulation scheme, may be applied to the PMCH to which the broadcast service having the low definition is mapped, and a high MCS level, for example, a 64 QAM modulation scheme, may be applied to the PMCH to which the broadcast service having the high definition is mapped. In this manner, a network may multiplex channels and may effectively use the radio resource based on the feature of the service. However, an area where the base station transmits data may be changed based on an MCS level. A mobile terminal close to the base station may receive both data transmitted at a high MCS level and data transmitted at a low MCS level, whereas a mobile terminal far away from the base station may only receive the data transmitted at the low MCS level. When the user requests to be provided with a service having a high MCS level while being far away from the base station, the mobile terminal may perform a procedure for reception even though the mobile terminal is not capable of receiving the service, and thus, a waste of battery power of the mobile terminal may occur.
Therefore, there is a need for a method of minimizing a consumption of battery power of a mobile terminal caused when an MBMS is provided, regardless of a location of the mobile terminal, in an MBSFN environment where MBMS data having different MCS levels are transmitted.